• X is enforcing a clause in its Terms of Service that blocks the transfer of account ownership without its permission.
• This as Global Tetrahedron is set to acquire Alex Jones’ InfoWars pending a court hearing.
• While enforcing this rule is bizarre given how rife account selling is on X, Elon Musk does have an axe to grind against The Onion.

Here’s a revelation that may inspire more folks to leave X, users don’t own their account at all. Truth be told, this shouldn’t be a revelation given this morsel of information is in the Terms of Service users agree to abide by when signing up for the service.

Of course, few if any people actually read those reams of conditions and that includes would-be buyers of Alex Jones’ InfoWars entity and owner of The Onion, Global Tetrahedron.

On 14th November Global Tetrahedron said that it had put in a bid to buy InfoWars a website run by Alex Jones, infamous for spreading misinformation and outright lies. The website was up for auction as a result of Jones being found liable for $1.5 billion in damages for defaming victims of a school shooting in the US. Global Tetrahedron made the offer to acquire InfoWars with help from the victims of Jones but no sooner had the ink hit the paper than Jones launched a challenge. Now a judge needs to approve the sale of the website.

As part of the acquisition, Global Tetrahedron would acquire all of InfoWars’ properties including its lucrative supplement business and its social media accounts. This is where X’s terms of service come into play.

The social media platform run by Donald Trump fan Elon Musk launched an objection to the transfer of the InfoWars account to Global Tetrahedron. X cited its own terms of service in this objection.

“We give you a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non-exclusive license to use the software provided to you as part of the Services. This license cannot be assigned, gifted, sold, shared or transferred in any other manner to any other individual or entity without X’s express written consent. This license has the sole purpose of enabling you to use and enjoy the benefit of the Services as provided on X, in the manner permitted by these Terms,” the relevant term reads.

Given that Musk and his ilk are right-wing all the way, that written consent may be hard to come by.

“Because the X accounts are governed by the TOS, the TOS make clear that X accounts are X Corp.’s ‘exclusive property’,” the court filing submitted this week reads.

While not surprising that X is enforcing its rules, its odd that it’s choosing this matter to do so for. There are thousands of X accounts being sold on any given day. Users create an account, rack up some influence through followers and engagement and then sell it to a buyer. It’s not clear if X is pursuing legal action against these sellers but given we’ve never heard of a lawsuit being launched against a person selling an X account.

No, we suspect that this blockade is being put in place because Musk loathes The Onion. The man never misses an opportunity to rag on the rag. This is surprising because in 2017, he was praising the publication.

The Onion is less funny than a clown in a ⁦@StephenKing⁩ novel!

Defeat the woke mind virus to make comedy legal again. pic.twitter.com/sQFXKRoUpB

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2024

Whether X’s TOS will hold up in court is unclear. We suspect it won’t because there are countless examples a legal team could unearth of an account changing hands. For example, Activision Blizzard is now owned by Microsoft, we very much doubt there is a clandestine group of ActiBlizz loyalists maintaining those accounts independently without Microsoft’s oversight.

A hearing on the sale of InfoWars to Global Tetrahedron is set to take place on 9th or 17th December according to Engadget, we may learn more about X account ownership then.